


Hunted By American Dreams

by chicagoartnerd



Series: The Bite That Binds [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Gen, Genderswap, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicagoartnerd/pseuds/chicagoartnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura ran. She took Derric and ran. Then spent the next six years running from the truth only to run back to it. This is one of the prequels to "The Walk" which can be read here. http://archiveofourown.org/works/496628</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunted By American Dreams

She felt it and knew immediately what it meant.

She was running for Derric. They were next.

This wasn’t an accident but she didn’t know who had done it. At the moment her priority was her remaining pack. She burst in on her changing for P.E.

“We have to go now.”

“What are you talking about? I’m in the middle of,”

But her eyes changed. She felt them burn and knew they were red and almost broke down. But instead she watched Derric’s confused, scrunched up scowl shift to horror. They stood there for a beat before she pushed her street clothes into her hands and growled,

“Change. I’ll wait outside the door. Yell if something happens.”

And then she was pacing the hall outside the girl’s locker room, trying to process but her thoughts just kept getting stuck over and over in a groove of panic.

How? Why? None of it mattered right now. They had to get out. Their only option was to run. As fast and as far as they could.

Derric finally stumbled out of the locker room and she grabbed her shoulder, steered her dazed sister down the hall, and out of the back emergency exit of Beacon Hills High. 

They didn’t take her truck because it was too recognizable but they couldn’t shift and run either. Whoever just murdered their entire family, well at least everyone older than her in their family, was going to be looking for them that way.

She hotwired some sophomore’s sedan while Derric watched in numb fascination. She wanted to offer her some sort of comfort. Anything really.

They were two years apart but instead of being rivals they maintained a comfortable mentor/pupil relationship that occasionally accompanied older and younger siblings in a pack.  There was too much for her to do. So many questions she had to assume the answers to. If she went looking for closure now they would be the next to die.

She went the opposite direction out of town than past Hale House but still saw the smoke rising from the preserve and knew it was coming from there. Not only were her family gone but her home along with it.

The killer wanted them expunged from Beacon Hills, all traces of them erased or left as a warning to future packs. _**You’re not welcome here. Get out or be murdered in your homes.**_

She kept the window cracked and let the smells of Northern California catch and flit away past them as they sped down I-5. 

With her new senses she could smell, hear, and sense everything around her ten times better. Derric’s distress was a sharp and urgent smell it was so bad it was reeking up the car. She was nauseous from her own terror and grief but pushed it all away. They had to get out of the state and as far away as they could without leaving the country.

So she drove all night. Relaxing slightly when Derric fell asleep, her blank, neutral scent offering her a bit of respite from reality.

She could pretend nothing was different, nothing was wrong when the evidence of it wasn’t bombarding her senses as she drove down the black roads towards I-80.

As Derric started to wake up the next morning she stopped at a rest area just over the Wyoming state border and ditched their car in the woods to sleep.

They had been trained for this. Had spent half their lives in forest shifted to more wolf than human. It felt good. It made her feel safe.

But she recoiled from the safety of shifting and watched as Derric shifted and went hunting. Instead she climbed a tree and tried to sleep. If they were going to keep going she had to rest. The jittery anxiety fought her every step of the way. It would be a disaster for her to fall asleep while driving nearly 80 miles an hour down the interstate.

She woke up to some thing snuffling her neck and almost took Derric’s head off. She ducked in time for Laura to grogily watch her fall out of the tree.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t! I thought!”

She shied away from her but nodded and then pointed down at a freshly killed doe. It was untouched but several hours cold.

Normally they would eat at the same time but nothing was normal now.

She shifted and felt her bulk increase even more than usual. There was a slight yelp from Derric as she tore in the carcass and ate her bloody fill. She didn’t have to feel it too much even though she knew the sight of her suddenly massive black snout must have been unnerving.

The wolf was there for her, it let her get lost in it, it looked after her. She was safe as long as she let it lead her. But she reined it in.

It was the false security of an ignorant animal. She wasn’t.

They stole a van at the rest area and drove for another half day and all night without speaking.

She was exhausted but her eyes wouldn’t shut, her hands failed to unclench even when she had left the steering wheel to relieve herself in a rest stop near Grand Island Nebraska.

Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, they all blended together in a sea of green and gold fields.

Everything smelled like ground water and pesticides and there was so little to hunt other than birds and ground squirrels that they had to resort to dumpster diving. She had an emergency debit card and cell phone but didn’t dare use them. Those things could be tracked easier than deer in the woods.

A skilled hunter could find them but whoever had murdered their pack had been rash with a mind built on vengeance and rage.

After thinking about it she knew the killer didn’t hold subtly or logic in too high regard. But she wasn’t willing to take chances.

 They made it to New Jersey the next day and she drove down I-95 to New York City. It was a big enough city that two wolves could get lost in it if they wanted.

She found a parking spot and they slept in their car that night. It was more uncomfortable than the forest floor but it could have been worse. 

The next morning she found a pay phone that didn’t have the wire cut and called her family’s bank and insurance company.

It was her job to support them both and she knew it would be a lot easier with access to the Pack’s accounts. Money was security in America and suddenly she had more of it than she had ever dreamed of. Nine half-a-million dollar life insurance policies were nothing to scoff at.

 Instead of renting a nice big apartment and spending it all they found a small place outside of the city and commuted two hours every day to attend NYU.

Slowly she pieced together what had happened through newspaper reports online and through conversations with bank and insurance employees.

She didn’t dare contact Doc Alan after she found out that every one who had been home that day had been trapped, the doors nailed shut, as strange chemical bombs were thrown in the house setting it ablaze.  The murderer/murderers were probably still living in Beacon Hills like nothing had happened. Maybe to them nothing really had.

“The killers must have gotten in through the tunnels and then bolted them shut after they lit all the exits on fire.”

“Oh.”

“I’m really close. There had to have been some one helping them who knew the tunnels were there. I’m looking in to the contractors Mom hired to build them and if I have to I’ll start looking at Kari and Julian.”

“Oh.”

She was paler than usual but she ignored it at the time. Brushing it aside for the disgust she felt when instead she should have hugged her. It was too late now.

After that something changed between them.

Derric went from distant to utterly closed off. She threw herself in to her studies, getting a GED early and then heading off the college right after her.

She was interested in getting a sociology major whereas Laura was on the criminal justice track. Her major was fascinating but she didn’t have much time for it. She was long distance hunting.

Trying to figure out how the arsonist got in to the house and out if all the exits were bolted shut.

No one knew about the tunnels except Pack members and that didn’t make any sense. And then it clicked.

She knew.

But Derric’s fear and guilt around her made her stop from confronting her. She would tell her in her own time but right now she was broken. Maybe if she were a better older sister she could help, but she was just as messed up she just didn't have the luxury of letting it stop her from taking care of her family. She was a pack leader now, a strong, steady alpha.

There was a certain level of competency that you had to project, had to fill youself up with confidence in order to make your Pack feel safe and comfortable. She had to be strong so Derric could keep functioning. No matter how tiny and broken she was now she held out hope that eventually she would be herself again.

The vibrant rough woman who liked to play pranks and laugh, who loved lacrosse and trashy romance novels but never let any one catch her reading them. She wanted her to be happy again.

So at least one of them could be.

It would be good for both of them to see a therapist or something but she didn’t know a single one in the city who would understand the true depth of what they would divulge to them.

Anyone who wasn’t Pack couldn't understand what it meant to be Pack. It wasn’t a simple loss.

It was the death of an entire world, of family true; of little sisters and brother, mother, father, uncle, aunt, friends, and crushes. There was no going back. Maybe if they weren’t two they could try and rebuild in New York but it was all too foreign and they were so small.

There were local Packs that might take Derric as a beta but not her.

She was an alpha now and would have to fight their alpha to the death if she wanted to join another Pack. And that was not something she ever wanted to do. There was only a little rage and vengeance in her and she was saving it for someone special.

  She would stay up at night, pacing her tiny room, trying to decide if she could bear to let her go. Let her have a family again while she became an omega and condemned herself to death. 

In the end she was selfish. Even though she knew Derric was shattered she couldn’t bring herself to let go of the one person she had left.

Even if that person had let a demon in to her house one night.

So she made their Pack of two official and announced their presence to the other Packs in the area. As alpha she attended local area meetings once a month but other than that they left them both alone.

Mostly out of pity rather than respect. They hadn’t claimed any territory of their own so there was nothing to fight them over.

She knew that Beacon Hills still belonged to their Pack. Even if only their spirits roamed the forests it was still their territory.

 One day they would go back.

But not until the people who did this were behind bars or in the ground.

She was ready to do both.

There were others, lovers and acquaintances who came and went while they were in New York. She didn’t dare get too close to any of them.  Her Pack would have been a death sentence and even Derric seemed to realize this. It was going to be just the two of them until Laura tracked down the monsters and slayed them. She was the Big Bad Wolf. It was her job now.

It didn’t pass her notice though, the way Derric pined after other people’s friends, looked between her and her various girlfriends/boyfriends hopefully. She never came out and said it but her scent was practically begging her to give them the bite.

“So you really like Naomi right?”

“Yeah she’s great.”

“Maybe you should have her over for dinner. I could go out and study at the Starbucks down the street until it closes if you want some time alone.”

“I don’t think so. I like her but Naomi and I are almost done. She’s great but just not what I’m looking for you know.”

“Okay.”

Her face crumpled but she never pushed, never stood up to her like she used to. So many things weren’t like they used to be and she hated it. Hated herself.

But in the end nothing ever happened.

She would cut ties with them and it would just be the two of them once again.

Laura waited for her to get close to someone but she never did. Derric distanced herself from everyone and became nothing but a scowl and slouch.  

They were two loners living two walls away from each other but it might have well have been miles. They rarely had meaningful conversations unless it was about the Change or Pack business. She never asked her what she had done because she didn’t want to accuse her. All the rest of her family was gone; she didn’t want to lose the one small, distant, member that remained.

So they didn’t talk about it.

Instead she started her own private investigation service after graduating and used her newly forged connections to keep investigating her family’s murder.

When she got her big lead, the tail she had been chasing for six years, pointing straight back to Beacon Hills, she left Derric a note.

It was cowardly and terrible and she regretted it but she couldn’t bring herself to ask her to return with her.

After all this time there was still far too much pain and guilt.  Derric still didn’t know what to do with herself and she wasn’t about to tell her.

Because even though she was alpha she didn’t feel in control, didn’t feel like a leader. She felt like a shitty big sister who was trying her hardest to set right something that could never be fixed.

They were both wolves but in their hearts they were only human.

Some part of her, she guessed it was the alpha part, knew a crack this obvious in the case must have been a trap. That’s why the note was not short. It had every bit of information she had gathered so far, every lead, every suspect she had discarded. All the clues just in case.

It also had a sloppy good bye that she winced over as almost as much as she winced when his claws sunk into her stomach with a disgusting smack. 

The only reason he was winning was because of the shock.

She could have taken his head off but she didn’t dare, he was her Uncle Peter after all.

He apparently had no such qualms about killing one of the last members of their family. This new Peter apparently wanted her power and nothing more.

There was no relief in dying.

Leaving Derric alone for good this time was agony but a hideous little part of her was elated to be joining her family once again, in peace.

But it seemed Hell followed her wherever she went.

She was dead for sure but she still saw, heard, and knew everything that was happening around her in Beacon Hills.

Watched Derric struggle to bury what was left of her bisected body. Watched her cry and felt her sobs wrench her soul.

They would have wounded her flesh if she had any left.  

Watched her struggle with being an omega and try to come to terms with the death of her last family member.

And then watched her find Scott and Stiles.

Oh that had been a surprise. That Stillinski girl was human to be sure but she shined so bright that her light was infectious.

She made Derric smile and that was so much more than enough.

If she was left to watch, not being able to even tell her that Peter was back, then she wanted to watch her little sister smile.

Even if from all outside appearances Stiles drove her up the wall she hadn’t seen her smile that crooked smile in over six years and if she had still had the ability she would have cried.

But apparently whatever supernatural force that mitigated these things hated her because even after Derric killed Peter and became alpha, struggled to do the right thing, struggled to build a family, she still remained.

And what’s worse was now she had a psychopath to keep her company.

She vaguely wondered if the rest of her family were here on Hale House land as well. Silently haunting it, waiting for the last living Hale to find peace.

Peter would find her no matter where she hid so she stopped hiding. He went on and on about how he died the night of the fire and like a phoenix he would once again rise from the ash.

She was pretty sure he was crazy but even if he wasn’t she was quite sure she was dead for good. But maybe there was still a way she could make amends.

He had a host of sorts who was still alive, a girl who could see ghosts. She didn’t want to use her like he was because that was so wrong but maybe without scaring her too badly she could ask her to tell Derric a few things.

Mostly things like how she was sorry, that she forgave her for telling Kate, that it wasn’t her fault what happened, and that she loved her.

Those were the really important bits, all the other pieces of information on Pack structure and what being the alpha meant could wait. She wanted her to be happy.

Because maybe with these new people in her life she could be happy.

Well if Peter, and the Hunters didn’t kill her first. There was nothing she could do about it from where she was so she tried to stay close.

Watched Stiles, Derric, Scott, and the rest of the new Pack try and fight for their territory and lives.

Watched as Derric tried to save everyone while destroying herself and watched as Stiles wouldn’t let her.

And then her chance came to help and with it her freedom.

Laura could finally leave them and rest knowing that no matter what danger or hardships they faced they would be a Pack.

Derric had a family again and that was all that mattered.


End file.
